Of Orcs and Probability

In the last post, I addressed what in the comments section I called a "category error"—wrongly imputing the existence in the fantasy world of a unit of measurement in the game mechanic that existed only in our world. There are no hit points in the fantasy world, nor are there abilities such as Strength or Constitution, nor +1 modifiers to magic swords, nor players, GM's or potato chips. But there are genes (probably), creatures that are strong or have a sturdy constitution, magic swords of varying utility (some of which talk back to you), player-characters (as opposed to players), gods (sort of like GM's but easier to sweet talk) and almost certainly potatoes. Mixing categories, or mixing up worlds leads to all sorts of errors. Constructing a theory of evolution in the fantasy world based on hit points is a bit like basing it on potato chips.

But I want to leave that point for now. For the fun of it, let's assume that hit points do have a real existence in the fantasy world, like genes perhaps. And thus we can now go along with constructing a kind of evolutionary theory that might show how a community of, say, Orcs has its low hit point members gradually (or not so gradually) weeded out through fighting. There's no question that they would be weeded out eventually, of course, but it might be fun and interesting to track how the process would occur.

The initial set-up was specified in this blog post. You start with 100 one hit die Orcs with an average spread of 1-8 hit points—12.5 would have 1 hit point, 12.5 would have 2 hit points, and so on. They fight three rounds against a similar group of Orcs. Each Orc has an Armor Class of 6 and carries a spear that does 1-6 points of damage. At the end of this, how many Orcs would survive? Perhaps more interestingly, what proportion of each hit point group of Orcs would survive? And how would this change the overall spread of the different hit point groups?

The claim was made that:

From the final count, if we presume that any of these humanoids we're meeting have been in only 3 rounds of combat, only 1 in 100 humanoids should have 1 hit point.  Only 13% should have 3 or less. Nearly half, 45%, should have either 7 or 8 hit points.  More than three quarters, 77%, should have 5 or more.

This is because:

Trying to get my math right here.  The numbers are based on the chances of being hit once plus the chance of being hit twice and the chance of being hit three times, multiplied by the chance of any of those hits killing the humanoid.  The humanoid's attacks are not considered - only the chance of a humanoid with an armor class of 6 surviving three spear attacks during a given combat.

Actually, he didn’t get his math right.

That’s okay, we all make mistakes, and I owe a debt to that blogger for giving me an interesting puzzle in probability to occupy myself for an hour or so after the kids had gone to sleep.

The easiest way of seeing part of it is to focus on the weakest group—the 1 hit point Orcs. All they need is one successful hit against them and they go down. You don’t need to figure out the chances of, say, one hit versus two hits occurring, or how much expected damage might or might not be done with each strike. Rather, it’s quite simple: One hit and you’re dead.

What are the odds that you’ll be hit? Well, flip it—what are the odd’s you won’t be hit? Every round there’s a 60% chance you won’t be hit (1-12 is a miss, 13-20 is a hit). Thus, the odds for surviving three rounds are 60% x 60% x 60%, or roughly 22%. That roughly tracks this blog post’s leading graphic, above. 4 Orcs would reduced to 1.  12.5 Orcs would be reduced to 2.7. However, asking how many 1 hit point Orcs would remain out of 100 survivors has to take into account that many of the other stronger Orcs would also have fallen. As we shall see later, it comes to about 50%. So out of 100 surviving Orcs (imagine you started with 200), there would be 2.7 x 2, or roughly five 1 hit point guys still standing. So the proportion of the wimpiest would have been reduced from 12.5% to 5%. It’s a tough world. But not quite as tough or tough so quickly on the 1 hit point Orcs as was originally claimed. The answer after three rounds is not 1 in 100 but more like 5 in 100.

Quick digression: the original blogger pegged the to hit chances at 35% not 40%. Every early edition of D&D that I’ve seen, from the original 1974 version to the 1e Players Handbook, to Moldvay/Cook has one hit die monsters hitting AC 6 opponents on a 13. So why 35%? Most likely, the blogger made the same mistake that I sometimes make in my head: 13 to hit means a probability to hit of (20-13)/20, right? Wrong. Don’t forget to count the 13. The correct formula is 20 minus the highest roll to miss (12) not the lowest roll to hit (13). Or if you prefer, you can also just add 1 to the numerator. But pegging the chances at 40% rather than 35% actually kills the weaker Orcs quicker. If the chances to hit had only been 35%, then 27% or 3.4 (as opposed to 2.7) would have survived.

Moving on to computing the survival odds for all Orcs, I’m not going to explicitly go through the whole thing, but here’s a sketch:

1. The first thing to do is break down the odds for any Orc in a three round battle being hit 0 times vs. 1 time vs. 2 times vs. 3 times. You can represent it like this:

Permutation	1st round	2nd round	3rd round	# of hits	Probability
1	miss (60%)	miss (60%)	miss (60%)	0	21.6%
2	miss (60%)	miss (60%)	hit (40%)	1	14.4%
3	miss (60%)	hit (40%)	miss (60%)	1	14.4%
4	miss (60%)	hit (40%)	hit (40%)	2	9.6%
5	hit (40%)	miss (60%)	miss (60%)	1	14.4%
6	hit (40%)	miss (60%)	hit (40%)	2	9.6%
7	hit (40%)	hit (40%)	miss (60%)	2	9.6%
8	hit (40%)	hit (40%)	hit (40%)	3	6.4%

This gives totals of:

Chance of 0 hits	21.6%
Chance of 1 hit	43.2%
Chance of 2 hits	28.8%
Chance of 3 hits	6.4%

So, now, without doing any more calculations, we can also see why 7 and 8 hit point Orcs make out so well in the original blogger’s example. Since the maximum damage is 6 hits, an Orc with 7 or 8 hit points must be hit at least two times to be killed (and even then there’s a good chance he won’t be killed). But there’s only about a one-third chance this will happen. Why, in the original example, all the Orcs are fighting with spears as opposed to doing standard damage of 1-8, or using some of the better weapons assigned to Orcs in, say, the Monster Manual is a good question. But it shows up an interesting and almost paradoxical pattern. The less effective the weapons the worse the wimpier Orcs will fare relative to their 7 or 8 hit point comrades. The evolutionary process would happen quicker if Orc armies wielded daggers. Conversely, if the Orcs were all wielding two-handed swords or halberds, the proportions of surviving wimpy Orcs versus surviving strong Orcs would be less pronounced. Even doing the calculations with weapons that did 1-8 points of damage (as opposed to those spears doing only 1-6) would smooth things out on the survival curve (as opposed to the discontinuous break in the original example that separates the 7 hit point and 8 hit point Orcs out from the rest).

2. Now compute the expected damage chances for 1 hit, 2 hits and 3 hits. Here, we’re actually in familiar territory as we’re simply calculating the odds for achieving various totals using 1d6, 2d6 and 3d6. Many OD&D players almost carry those odds around in their heads.

3. Next multiply the two together in all the possible cases. I used an Excel spreadsheet, and again I won’t go though the details, but the final expected survival numbers after 3 rounds of battle are given on this table.

1 hp	2 hp	3 hp	4 hp	5 hp	6 hp	7 hp	8 hp
2.7	3.6	4.6	5.7	6.9	8.2	9.6	10.2

That gives the expected number of survivors as 51.5 out of a starting group of 100.

That’s actually an interesting number. It shows that for one hit die or 1st levelish creatures with moderate armor, if you (as a low level character) fight them for three rounds, you are likely to have reduced their numbers by about half. That’s another morale break point, I think. Low level OD&D combats shouldn’t last very long.

We can rewrite the results using percentages (by dividing the results by 51.5%). Drop the %’s and you have the number of Orcs in each hit point category out of 100 surviving ones:

1 hp	2 hp	3 hp	4 hp	5 hp	6 hp	7 hp	8 hp
5.2%	7.0%	8.9%	11.1%	13.4%	15.9%	18.6%	19.8%

These numbers are closer to those of the original blogger at the high ends (though not at the low ends), though they are still not quite as pronounced.  So replace

Only 13% should have 3 or less. Nearly half, 45%, should have either 7 or 8 hit points.  More than three quarters, 77%, should have 5 or more.

With

Only 21% should have 3 or less. Over a third, 38%, should have either 7 or 8 hit points.  More than two thirds, 68%, should have 5 or more.

Keep in mind, though, that raising the to hit chances to 40% helps the original blogger’s case. The numbers would be even more off if we had stayed with 35%.

Finally, you can rerun the numbers using the new proportions—5.2, 7.0 etc. vs. 12.5, 12.5, etc.—to find results if the surviving Orcs decide to fight additional three round battles. Sure enough, if you fight enough three round battles—3 actually—the wimpy 1 hit point Orcs will be reduced to that magic 1 in 100 number.

  

# Battles	1 hp	2 hp	3 hp	4 hp	5 hp	6 hp	7 hp	8 hp
1	5.2%	7.0%	8.9%	11.1%	13.4%	15.9%	18.6%	19.8%
2	1.9%	3.4%	5.5%	8.4%	12.4%	17.5%	23.9%	27.0%
3	0.6%	1.5%	3.1%	5.8%	10.4%	17.4%	27.9%	33.5%

But these numbers are quite different from those originally claimed:

hp	surviving after three battles
1	1 in 11,248 (!!! -ed.)
2	1 in 252
3	1 in 46
4	1 in 15
5	1 in 6
6	1 in 3
7	4 in 7
8	2 in 3

Again, see here.

Extra credit: instead of computing probability formulas, you can simulate Orc battles using the RANDBETWEEN and IF functions of Excel.

For the first to hit roll on a d20 it’s a1=RANDBETWEEN (1,20), then to compute damage you go b1=IF(a1>=13, RANDBETWEEN (1,6), 0). Do that three times and then add the “damage cells” to determine whether you have a kill. If f2 is the number of starting hit points, then the formula is =IF((b2+d2+e2)>=f2, 1, 0) where 1 is a kill and 0 is a survival. Of course starting hit points can be determined by =RANDBETWEEN(1,8). Or one can simply start out with 12 or 13 in each category. For successive battles featuring survivors, you can use a more complicated RANDBETWEEN or even RAND function using the new proportions.

If anyone has ever done something like this in Excel, you know that once you have the formulas set up, you just have to touch a random non-used cell (or fill it in) to simulate another battle and thus get a different result. It takes less than a second.

Probability can be weird. On only my fifth battle I had a situation where the 1 hit point Orcs actually survived in greater numbers than the 8 hit point Orcs.

More power to them!

Final note: I could of course have made all sorts or errors. If any readers would like to try their hand at identifying them, I would of course be interested and not offended. But please, no four-letter words, Alexis.

Of Orcs and Evolution

Recently another blogger put forth the claim that monsters with only one hit die should generally be assigned 7 or 8 hit points, as opposed to the standard range of 1-8 generated by rolling for them. (Obviously we're assuming the  eight-sided die standard of Greyhawk and AD&D as opposed to the six-sided standard of Monsters & Treasure, but the same sort of considerations would be applicable in the latter case.) Essentially the argument is an evolutionary one-that for any community of one-hit die creatures where its members lead dangerous and violent lives, creatures with fewer than 7-8 hit points would inexorably be weeded out by a sort of social-darwinian process. I'm calling it "social-darwinian" as opposed to "darwinian" partly to stress that the argument has nothing to do with reproductive chances (though I suppose one could add that consideration to it if one chose) but rather simply looks at what would happen to the same group of, say, Orcs over a period of time in which they fought a set of battles containing multiple attack rounds. Probability analysis shows that after a relatively small number of combat rounds, the overwhelming majority of surviving Orcs would be those that started out with 7 or 8 hit points. So the typical Orc from a tribe that did a lot of fighting would presumably be one of those Orcs. The Orcs with fewer hit points would have already fallen off the treadmill, so to speak, in this tough and unforgiving world.

If you're like me, you probably find the conclusion annoying, though it may not be clear precisely what if anything is wrong with the actual argument. Various commentators on that blog and elsewhere proposed various "solutions"-maybe low hit point Orcs are actually high hit point Orcs that are just having a bad day, perhaps the low hit point Orcs have just come from another fight, etc. J.D. Jarvis at Aeons & Augauries has a series of three quite useful posts ending here where he considers the issue from a number of angles.

In my view, the original argument is perhaps valid. But it is certainly unsound. This is because one of the premises is false. Which premise is that?

I'll say in a moment. But to first digress slightly: When various theories of evolution were proposed by Darwin, Huxley, Spencer and others in the late 19th century, some felt that while evolution in some form was probably true, it was imprudent to, so to speak, make too big a deal of it, especially to the scientifically untrained "masses". Darwinian evolution had the potential (so went the argument) to shatter people's most cherished beliefs.

So to get back to that false premise. I'm going to say something that arguably may shatter one of the most cherished beliefs of many OD&D players (I'm sort of kidding, of course). Or at least it may appear to attack a key metaphysical pillar of the game. Just to be careful, I'm going to whisper it. Here goes:

Hit points don't exist.

"What was that? What? I didn't quite catch that. Could you really have said what I think you said?" Okay, I'm going to whisper it again:

Hit points don't exist.

Now, it's important to understand that I'm not making the claim that because we are talking about a fantasy game, nothing in the game really exists. No. That would be an extremely trivial and thus silly claim. Within the context of the fantasy world referenced by the game (which is what we're of course referring to when debating theories of Orcian evolution) all sorts of things exist. For example, Orcs exist. Orc lungs and muscles exist. Orc brains (such as they are) exist. In Orcs and most other humanoid creatures, fast-twitch muscle fibers (for better sprinting and other short energy bursts) exist, as do slow-twitch muscle fibers (for better endurance). And if the deep anatomy and biology of our fantasy world is remotely similar to ours, then even Orc genes exist.

But hit points do not exist. The point is not that that they do not exist because they are abstractions (although they certainly are abstractions) but that they are abstractions whose only purpose is to help resolve combats and similar dangerous situations that involve players. They have no meaning and indeed no reality beyond that. "Offstage", hit points have no reality. None.

So, while you are and your group are exploring that dungeon, it's true that there are all sorts of violent episodes raging in that same fantasy world-from minor one-on-one muggings to vast battles involving multiple armies. And, yes, creatures are dying and being killed (and surviving and killing), probably in very large quantities. But in any particular case, that creature going to its creaturely reward is doing so not because "its hit points have been reduced to zero", but because it had its head cut off or was stabbed in the heart, or (to use a different level of analysis) it didn't have enough fast-twitch muscles or the right selection of useful Orc genes, or whatever.

So, I have no problem going along with some theory of Orcian evolution that posits the weeding out of wimpy Orcs (though that would seem to be sort of self-evident, and why anyone would want to spend more than a few seconds pondering such a theory is beyond me). No doubt evolution in the somewhat more civilized human communities of our fantasy world would have a tendency to weed out people that aren't attractive to the opposite sex, or aren't very good at sucking up to the Man, or whatever. But if there is any evolution going on, it has nothing to do with hit points.

Moving outside and above the fantasy world to the level of game playing, the standard implication of OD&D that when fighting one-hit die creatures there will be an average spread of hit points from 1-8 is perfectly reasonable given the assumptions of the combat resolution mechanism, in the same way that "hits" doing an average spread of 1-6 points of damage is perfectly reasonable. The combination is just a way of creating a satisfying and interesting set of possibilities influenced by multiple levels of randomness, not an attempt to construct a realistic combat system based on identifying hit points as some essential physical or metaphysical feature of Orcs, humanoids, monsters or anything else.

That really would be silly.

The Most Pointless Table Ever

This is of course taken from the new 5e D&D Basic Rules.

Make them all different (1e) or make them all the same (0e) (my preference), but why make some the same and some different but only by a really teeny amount? What is the purpose of it in terms of player choice, play balance, the aesthetic of the rules, realism, getting players more immersed in the fantasy world or, well, just making things fun?

Contrast:

Everyone begins with 30-180 gold pieces to seek his or her fortune.

with

We mean to comprehensively and accurately describe this alternate fantasy world for you. It's important for us to get it right, and it's important for you to get it right. The average amount of funds that different character classes start out with is similar but not precisely so (due to how the economics of the fantasy world work out, or whatever). The average amount is the same for Clerics and Fighters and the same for Rogues and Wizards, but Clerics and Fighters have slightly higher averages than Rogues and Wizards. In practice of course this doesn't make a huge amount of difference, but still it's important for us to get it right, and it's important for you to get it right. Here is a chart  that explains it.

Unfair perhaps, but that's how it appears to me.

I have no idea whether the table was lifted from 4e or 3.5 or not and I don't really care to check. But it's just another example of ill-thought out (or overly thought out) clunkiness.

The Towering Castle Beneath the Stormy Night Sky

Pop quiz: match these opening lines to the above games--the new "5e" D&D Basic (2014), Lamentations of the Flame Princess (2012), Swords & Wizardry Complete (2010) and Dungeons & Dragons (1974):

TREASURE and glittering gems; dark places beneath the earth where monsters dwell; magic circles, pentagrams and pentacles; runes of evil import, and iron-banded doors of mouldering oak; wizards of vast power, living in their isolated towers above black seaside cliffs; great-horned demons in their bloody lairs; massive stone idols with jeweled eyes and hieroglyphic pedestals, carved in the distant eons before the young civilizations of humankind; strange and glowing orbs, floating in the air above rusted metal grates leading to deeper levels of the underground passageways…

It is about flying carpets and cursed blades, about hooded priests gathered for unspeakable rites in their forgotten temples; it is about adventure and about perilous undertakings, forcing back the evil creatures of Chaos from the borderlands of embattled civilization; it is about battle-scarred warriors and deadly sorcerers…

Being a Referee is like being an artist, a manager, an accountant, and that crazy old guy that lives in the park that everyone avoids because he’s always talking to himself, all in one. Although hopefully you won’t be talking to yourself. At least not while anyone is listening.

ONCE UPON A TIME, long, long ago there was a little group known as the Castle and Crusade Society. Their fantasy rules were published, and to this writer's knowledge, brought about much of the current interest in fantasy wargaming. For a time the group grew and prospered, and Dave Arneson decided to begin a medieval fantasy campaign game for his active Twin Cities club. From the map of the "land" of the "Great Kingdom" and environs — the territory of the C & C Society — Dave located a nice bog wherein to nest the weird enclave of "Blackmoor", a spot between the "Great Kingdom" and the fearsome "Egg of Coot". From the CHAINMAIL fantasy rules he drew ideas for a far more complex and exciting game, and thus began a campaign which still thrives as of this writing! In due course the news reached my ears, and the result is what you have in your hands at this moment. While the C & C Society is no longer, its spirit lives on, and we believe that all wargamers who are interested in the medieval period, not just fantasy buffs, will enjoy playing DUNGEONS and DRAGONS. Its possibilities go far beyond any previous offerings anywhere!

The DUNGEONS & DRAGONS ROLEPLAYING GAME IS ABOUT storytelling in worlds of swords and sorcery. It shares elements with childhood games of make-believe. Like those games, D&D is driven by imagination. It’s about picturing the towering castle beneath the stormy night sky and imagining how a fantasy adventurer might react to the challenges that scene presents.

It's a pretty easy quiz, obviously, for people who have read or played these games or who know a bit about the authors or the historical context. And for anyone paying attention, the point of the exercise should be immediately clear. Only one excerpt uses the term "imagination" (and if you count the variant, "imagine", it mentions it twice) yet the prose in that piece is without doubt the least imaginative (and the dullest and most boring) of the four.

The precise character of the selections differ somewhat of course. One is an attempt to get you excited about the game in question by immediately transporting you into a fantastic world. Another is a sort of self-deprecating and funny introduction to how to "run" a game. The third is an all-over-the-place and quirky piece focusing partly on the historical circumstances of how the game in question came to be created. And the fourth is of course a straight introduction. Are the first three authors Nobel-Prize winning stylists? I don't know. Perhaps not. Who is? But they--Matt Finch and James Raggi--are (or in the case of the late Gary Gygax, were) damn good "amateur" writers who felt it important to start the text of their rules right off with strong, interesting adult prose--even though they knew that children were a big part of their audience (okay, maybe Raggi doesn't write for children, but still). I don't know who the author of the D&D Basic excerpt is. And even if I did spend a few seconds to investigate, I imagine that the opening text to one of the flagship games of a major game company is somewhat of a joint effort. The point is not to criticize or blame any particular person. The author (whether or not the text was modified or overseen by others) is undoubtedly a talented game designer and probably a pretty good writer. (He has a good paying job doing this and I don't. And there is probably a reason for that.) But that doesn't absolve the text.

It's terrible. Boring. Clipped. Unimaginative. It reads like one of those excruciatingly awful high-school history textbooks that have had all the color leeched out to avoid offending anyone and to make it understandable to readers in the lowest tenth percentile, or perhaps a book report written by an intelligent 7th grader who has mastered the rules of grammar, but has no particular desire to make her writing particularly interesting or exciting (it's only a book report).

Well, after all (so the counter-argument goes) it's a mass-market product. There are certain things they have to do and that are expected given the economics and their market niche and the corporate culture that they are a part of, etc., etc., etc. You're naive if you think otherwise. Well, putting aside one obvious retort to that--must all prose intended for the "mass-market" be insipid?--even if that were an explanation or a justification for why it happened, that doesn't change the fact. If you thought my prose was insipid, and I told you that the reason for that was because I was promised a million dollars if I would make it insipid, that wouldn't change anything for you. That wouldn't or shouldn't make you any more likely to buy or even pay attention to my product.

Does it matter? After all, it's only a game.

Yes. It does. 5e D&D Basic asserts that it is at the pinnacle of role-playing games. It builds (so it claims) on the experience gained in the design, writing and play of the previous four editions and three generations, forty years and literally millions of players. Thousands of hours and probably hundreds of thousands of dollars have gone into its development, and the best they can come up with is:

[Dungeons & Dragons] is about picturing the towering castle beneath the stormy night sky and imagining how a fantasy adventurer might react to the challenges that scene presents.

The dull, completely unimaginative prose is one way that contemporary "D&D" smothers the imagination of its players. There are other ways that it does this, of course. But this as good an example as any.

D&D 5e Basic Rules: A Random Review

As most of you probably know by now, the free download of the Basic Rules is available here.

In the spirit of the OSR I thought I would write a review based on random tables. Grab a six-sided die and enjoy!

1. COMMENT ON THIS SAMPLE EXCHANGE:

Dungeon Master (DM): OK, one at a time. Phillip, you’re looking at the gargoyles?

Phillip: Yeah. Is there any hint they might be creatures and not decorations?

DM: Make an Intelligence check.

Phillip: Does my Investigation skill apply?

DM: Sure!

Phillip (rolling a d20): Ugh. Seven.

DM: They look like decorations to you. And Amy, Riva is checking out the drawbridge?

Die	Result
1	A clear presentation of the current state of the art in RPGs. Thank the goddess we’re not living in the 1970’s anymore.
2	I skip these sorts of things.
3	I wanted to write something but I just failed my Intelligence check.
4	That this is featured on the first page of text does not auger well.
5	The above is an example of ‘New School’ roleplaying at its dumbest.
6	That one of the female characters is named ‘Riva’ brings up bad memories.

2. OVERALL THE RULES ARE:

Die	Result
1	Way too complicated.
2	Not complicated enough. Bring on the full $40 manuals!
3	Appropriate for the 'Basic Game'. It will lure novices in.
4	A precise simulation of reality down to the tiniest atom.
5	Fascinating! I've always wanted to act out a fantasy story. Now I understand how to do it!
6	Way too complicated. But then again, I've had a few drinks.

3. IF I WANT TO, CAN I PLAY A DWARF WHO IS NOT 'DWARF-LIKE', AT LEAST ACCORDING TO THE TWO PAGE DESCRIPTION OF 'DWARF-LIKE' RACIAL AND CULTURAL CHARACTERISTICS, ATTITUDES TO THE OTHER RACES, ETC?:

Die	Result
1	No.
2	Yes.
3	That you even ask shows that you are a reactionary.
4	Yes.
5	Only if you make your Constitution check modified by your Arrogance score.
6	Perhaps, but only after private consultation with your DM.

4. IS THE ELF TRAIT 'MASK OF THE WILD':

Die	Result
1	Evocative.
2	Confusing.
3	A further sign that Elves are a bit magical.
4	Silly.
5	Cool.
6	Cribbed from 50 Shades of Grey.

5. PERSONALITY TRAITS (IDEALS, BONDS AND FLAWS) ARE:

Die	Result
1	Boring and too new school.
2	An enhancement of role-playing, and isn't that what it's all about?
3	Appropriate for the 'Basic Game'. Freudian analysis only comes with the Advanced edition.
4	Confusingly presented. Are they chosen or randomly determined? The rules are unclear.
5	Fascinating! I've always wanted to act out a fantasy story. Now I understand how to do it!
6	Way too complicated. But then again, I've had a few drinks.

6. COMMENT ON THIS TEXT:

You don't need to be confined to binary notions of sex and gender. The elf god Correllon Larethian is often seen as androgynous or hermaphroditic, for example...You could also play a female character who presents herself as a man, or a man who feels trapped in a female body, or a bearded female dwarf who hates being mistaken for a male. Likewise, your character's sexual orientation is for you to decide.

Die	Result
1	I'm sorry, what is there to comment on?
2	Whatever, as long as the all the NPC Elven chicks have lesbian tendencies.
3	Oh, please. Must we have this in a game written primarily for children?
4	Yes, we must, and the author of the above statement is obviously a homophobe. There's no place for that in the RPG community. Take your hate and go home.
5	Personally, I've always felt I was a bearded man trapped in the body of someone who can't grow a beard.
6	Perhaps, but only after private consultation with your DM.

7. IS THE LIST OF 'TRINKETS':

Die	Result
1	About the only thing worthwhile here.
2	Too random. What if you end up with a bad one?
3	Too simple, without description or explanation. It's not clear how to DM it. Will the Advanced edition have rules telling us how to use these in play?
4	Cool.
5	So old school that it almost seems out of place.
6	Cool.

8. DO THE 0-HIT POINT, DEATH AND HEALING RULES SEEM ANY MORE 'DANGEROUS' THAN 4E:

Die	Result
1	No.
2	Yes.
3	Extremely unclear. Mixed signals are sent.
4	No.
5	Probably not.
6	No, and that's another huge problem with this game.

9. IS THE PRESENCE OF A MAGIC MISSILE SPELL THAT AUTOMATICALLY HITS:

Die	Result
1	New school.
2	Old school.
3	Heresy.
4	A carryover from the original game that has no deep significance whatsoever.
5	A good thing for all M-U's to have, if they have a spare spell slot.
6	Pretty damn powerful considering that in general you get one 'dart' per level. (Though in the context of the relatively high hit points and other special powers of PC's and Monsters in this game, is it really that great? I have no idea.)

10. WAS THE AUTHOR OF THIS REVIEW:

Die	Result
1	Fair and balanced.
2	Unbalanced.
3	Mixed. It depends on how the dice were rolled. Hence the 'Random' title.
4	Predisposed.
5	Inebriated (but what else is new?)
6	All of the above

Fight On!